Microsoft Technologies, ASP.NET & SQL SERVER Tips with Rajat Jaiswal

WordPress is well known CMS for the decade. I personally like it very much and using since 2008. With the help of Alibaba Cloud, you can set up your own WordPress which you can customize easily later on.

To set up a WordPress ECS is very easy just follow the below steps to configure a WordPress ECS.

if you remember my previous post in which I explained creating an ECS machine. We will follow the exact same steps to create a WordPress ECS.

I hope you remember ElasticComputer Service (ECS). We are going to create a WordPress enabled ECS.

Step 1: For this just log in with your credentials and go to console option.

In which you have to select the Elastic Computer Service option from the menu.

Step 2:- After clicking the ECS option you will get the following screen where you will find a summary of your existing ECS. Now Click on Instances option to view instances or ECS machine in the tabular format.

Step 3: As you aware that we can create ECS and in any available region. Suppose if you want to see all the instances in Middle East & India ‘s India area then just click that option as shown in below image.

Step 4:- You will get all the instances which exist in the selected area in the below screen which you can manage any time. As we have created a new Instance for WordPress we will click on “Create Instance” button.

Step 5: After clicking the button we will get a wizard where we have to select some specific values which we preferred.

if you see in the first step we have billing Method option like Subscription or PAY AS YOU GO option which we can choose as per our ease. In the current example, I am using PAY AS YOU GO Option. You can choose any region as well but my preference in Asia’s India area.

As per your preference you can select no of CPU processor, RAM & Disk. for this demo purpose, we are choosing default minimum configuration.

Step 6: In the next step we have to choose the image which we want on the machine. For this specific example for our ease, we are choosing option Marketplace image option where we will have a bunch of pre-generated images.

Step 7: After clicking marketplace image button we will get the following screen. Just search for WordPress we will get options as shown below.

You can choose any available free image as per your operating system preference.

Step 8: Just click the “Continue” button in front of the selected image and you are good to go. After selecting image next step in choose disk which you can choose either Ultra Cloud Disk or SSD as per your need and any size.

Step 9: in the next step just select the network and other options. in the current demo, we are just going with default.

step 11: Now, when you click on next step you can configure the password as per your need. This password would be your machine’s password.

step 12: At the end just review your configuration and click on create an instance.

Step 13: You will get following popup window which states that the instance would be ready in 1-5 mins.

step 14: Now, when you go to console and select instances option which we did earlier in this post. You will find a new instance is up and running.

If you see here you will find public and private IP address by which you can access the machine via RDP (if windows operating system) or Putty (if other) if required.

step 15: Now, Just try to open public IP address in the browser. You will find the WordPress screen. Just configure it and we are good to go.

In the last post, we reviewed the ECS (Elastic Computing Service) Of Alibaba Cloud. Now, In this post, we will try to create our first SQL SERVER windows server within a few basic steps.

Here the best part is you can go with either PAY-AS-YOU-GO or monthly subscription and choose any operating system, configuration depends upon your need and budget.

Prerequisites:- You should have Alibaba Cloud account.

Once you sign in with your username and password then follow below steps.

Step 1: After login click on the console option as shown in below figure

Step 2:- You will get the Dashboard screen. Here You have to click on Products and select Elastic compute Service as shown in below screen.

Step 3:- You will get below screen where you will find your existing resources in the specific region in the middle.

We can also view all existing instances from Instances menu option on the left-hand side. so just click it.

Step 4: Here as you can see below on the screen. You will get the list of all the instances as a tabular list in the middle. You can change the region from the upper left option of the region.

As we have to create a new instance of Windows server with SQL SERVER configuration so just click on Create instance as shown in the above figure.

Step 5:- As you click the button you will find the below screen where you can define your own configuration & operating system from the available list.

So, let’s start from the top where you need to select the Billing method which could be Subscription basis or Pay AS You Go basis depends upon your need you can avail this.

In the next step, you have to select the region. Which is again depends on your product need. For example, I am in India and creating a product for Indian Market so, I have selected Mumbai region (Asia).

After selecting the region you have the option to select the CPU and RAM. Just to let you know here if you go for Subscription basis then there might be some extra option for CPU or RAM. here in our example, we are going with PAY AS YOU GO option so we have some less option for CPU but it is more than enough.

Step 6: Once the CPU & RAM is finalized in the next step we have to choose the operating system. Here we have a public image, custom image, shared image & Marketplace image option.

As most of the time Marketplace have an image which we required so we can use as is if required else we can create a public image or use other option which is available.

Here in this example, we are using marketplace image

So, just click on Select from Image market. when you click this option you will get a pop window with various pre-built image option where some of them are free and some of them are not free.

For the current demo, I am using a free image as shown in below screen.

Step 7:- After selecting the image the next step is to choose the Hard Disk. Where we have 2 options ULTRA CLOUD & SSD CLOUD disk

Now, It again depends upon the cost and performance matrix which one would you like to have on your machine. I am selecting ULTRA cloud disk 40 GB for the demo.

Step 8:- Now once this is done in the next step you have to check the Network billing method. Here you have to define network bandwidth depends upon your need.

Apart from this as you can see for security reason you can open or close the port as per your need. some common port configuration can be done here like 80,443 etc.

Step 9:- You are almost done. On the next screen, you will see the existing configuration and here you have 2 great features

1) You can save the current configuration template which you can launch later if required.

2) You can configure the release of the resource as well for example the current configuration which I am doing will be autorelease at the specific time.

Step 10:- Once you have done with this step and accept the term and condition you are good to go and you will be redirected to Instances page.

Here you can see your recently, created instance is available. Once it is started. In the next step you can access the machine, by clicking more option, apart from this you can reset the password and release the resource at any time.

Step 11:- Just click on connect and provide proper username & Password which you set for VM.

I hope you enjoyed the setup of the machine in 10 easy steps.

In the next blog, we will see something more interesting in Alibaba Cloud.

In the last post, we learned how to grab domain name using Alibaba Domain Service. Now, before jumping further let’s understand the first and most interesting part which is Elastic Computer Service (ECS).

By the name, It might give you some sense that a service which might have Elastic feature. Isn’t it?

Let me explain you this by one example, suppose you have a nice e-commerce site which you hosted on a dedicated server from a xyz hosting service. So, far your e-commerce site is working fine and now holiday season came and all of sudden you find there is much more traffic than your expectation and your site started crashing. You get lots of feedback from the end consumer that your site is not responding properly. In such case, you will think of network bandwidth upgrade and also upgrade the hosting package which is obvious but after holiday season off you still dealing with the same high-end server which might not be required going forward. Apart from this, you might need to have to have a backup server always to disaster recovery and for that also you are paying a high cost.

So, in Alibaba Cloud Computing Elastic Computer Service gives you the flexibility to solve this type of problems.

With Alibaba ECS service you can create a machine with desire configuration like –upgrade /downgrade bandwidth, RAM, Storage by simple steps and within a few minutes moreover pricing is very cheap.

Alibaba Cloud ECS is secure which is a most important need for any e-commerce business.

To setup, a virtual machine in Alibaba ECS is very easy.

Before proceeding further let me share important points that would help you create your configurations.

ECS Billing mode:-

1) PAY AS YOU GO- Which means you have to pay the amount of hourly use. Most of the time people choose this plan for a development machine and other best part is you can schedule the release of the resource as well or can release anytime when you want.

2) Subscription:- This is another billing mode in which the charge would be on the subscription basis. This will be a good option for production machines where we have to run web application or database 24 X7.

Zone & Region:- Here Zone and region mean the actual or we can say physical data center. for example, if your website target area is India then the ECS should create in Alibaba’s Asia Pacific region and Mumbai Zone.

In our step by step tutorial this is our next post in which we will see how to avail your free .TECH domain with Alibaba Cloud computing.

Apart from cloud services Alibaba Cloud Computing also sell Domain names which we can avail with minimum amount.

A good news is that you can avail .TECH domain free for 1 year. Below are the steps.

So in the first step login to the Alibaba Cloud and check the Free trial.You will find below option as shown below

Step 2: – Click on Try Now button to proceed further

Step 3:- Now you have to search your domain name which you want . If that domain name is available then you will find in below list. Just select the checkbox in front of the domain name. In the current demo we are going for a free domain which is .TECH and luckily Indiandotnet.TECH is available. So, I am selecting that and clicking on AddToCart button. After clicking the we will get following screen.

Step 4:- once you check and everything looks good to you in next step

you have to register for domain which is required for domain ICANN. You will find below notification if you have not registered.

Step 5:- Simply create registration profile to proceed further and you will find below screen of registration.

One point is to remember here the information like registration email and contact number should be valid. Once your email is verified then only you can place order.

Step 6:- Now next you will get confirmation order screen as shown below

step 7:- Once you confirm all your detail is good and everything looks good click on next step where which is payment. As this is a free trial account for 1 year so it is absolutely free. so you don’t need to pay anything. if you see here pay is $0.00

Step 8:- Just click on Pay button and you are will find confirmation screen as shown below and congratulations you avail 1 year free .TECH domain.

Now , it might be your next question now where we can find this domain .

Apart from free domain other domain also available in very cheap price which you can try.

I am pretty much sure will try the free domain and buy new domains going forward.

On the main page, you will find a free Account button as shown in below image. Just click it to proceed further

After clicking the Free Account you will get the following screen where you need to provide basic details like your email & password to create an account. Remember the Email should be valid because a validation code will be sent by Alibaba Cloud services to verify your email account.

Once you fill your Email and password and click confirm. A Verification popup will open as shown in below screen where you have to click on the send button to send a unique code to verify your email account.

You have put that verification code and verify your account. Once your email is verified so I will say congratulations your account is created in Alibaba Cloud. Although, there are still a few pending steps. But before that you have to login into the system via the following screen as shown in the image.

After successful login, your half way is done you will get a nice dashboard screen as shown below .

Now, in next step, you have to setup payment method. So, in the payment method there are 2 options

1. credit card

2. PayPal

so, it depends what you prefer.

After providing proper details of card or payPal a minimum amount less than $1 transaction will be raised by Alibaba Cloud service to verify your payment information.

Now, You are good to go to use Alibaba cloud services.

In Next step we will learn more about Alibaba Cloud services and try to do some practical.

As you might aware or you might face the need for Cloud.
But if you are not aware of Cloud computing so don’t worry about that we will first describe what is Cloud Computing & need of it?

So, let’s understand this by an example so, before Cloud Computing if we want to host a website, then we have to do following things

1) Buy servers to host web application & your database. you have installed the required software like PHP, ASP.NET, MYSQL etc which you required and then configure the application.
2) The second thing which we need to buy network traffic.
3) Once we have done with the above steps then next thing which is important is to maintain or monitor these servers and network traffic.
4) the space required to save the data.

Now, if you see the major disadvantage is we have to pay a high cost to maintain and monitor the servers and also the setup of the servers is expensive. The other thing is monitoring and troubleshooting is tedious. Sometimes we pay the unnecessary amount when our system is idle. Even when we required a high-end CPU /RAM or network traffic we cannot change frequently according to Our need. scale up & down is very difficult and time-consuming. Even if going forward if we need more space then it is quite difficult if we go without cloud.

To resolve all such issues Cloud is the solution. Where we can just concentrate on our application or we can say business only rest all other is easy to handle by cloud service provider. We can increase RAM/CPU/SPACE /Network bandwidth as per our need.
Moreover, security and recovery are also can be defined on your fingertips.

In nutshell, Cloud is a big umbrella where you can fulfill your applications need without worrying on hardware like (CPU, RAM, Storage), Network bandwidth, security, and data recovery.

Below are main advantages
1) It is a self-service and easy to use
2) Save your money by paying only those services which you are using
3) Scale up and down based on your business needs

There are many companies which offer cloud computing (Services over the internet) and a well-known name is Alibaba Cloud computing services.

Recently, in March 2018 Microsoft launched the Alpha version of a new way of thinking to develop the web application which BLAZOR.NET.

Nowadays if you see yourself as a web application developer then you are heavily surrounded with JavaScript, for example, Angular JS, VU.JS etc.

In the nutshell, if you want to survive in the Web development field you have to have learned any of the above-mentioned JavaScript frameworks moreover need to learn JavaScript as well, which is good although.

But now Microsoft brings a new framework which Blazor.NET which I can say is the new way of thinking of web application development and without less dependency on JavaScript.

So, If you want to create any Single Page Application for which you to heavily dependent on the JavaScript framework like AngularJS earlier which you can avoid and create the sample kind of SPA application using Blazor.NET with your favorite C# language. Isn’t it a big surprise?

This New Blazor.NET framework helps .NET (C#) developers to create the web application with the help of web assembly without depending on Javascript.

We can use the same Razor syntax and C# language to create a web application.

Although it is an experimental project, surely it will be used with full swing soon.

In the last article we learned about the different controls which exist in PowerApps although there are some more controls which we will discuss going forward before jumping into remaining controls let’s discuss here the most important part Collection.

What is collection?

A collection is used to store data that can be used in your app or we can say a collection is a group of items that are similar. For example, Student data collection where the collection will store student first name, last name and other information about the student.

To see it practically let’s open PowerApps editor and add a new screen and OnStart function create a collection.

Now to create a collection in PowerApps we have “Collection” function in PowerApp and syntax is as follows

So, we have created our first collection. To view this in action add any control you want here we are using Gallery control.

Once you added this control you will find the data properties and we can see our created collection which is “StudentCollection”

Here we can assign the title and subtitle properties of the gallery with the property Name & LastName of our newly StudentCollection.. Just Save the application at this point and reload the app again.

You will find the following screen.

We can check our newly created collection by file option as shown below

In this way, we can create a collection. Now, the next question is how to ADD/EDIT/Remove in the collection. So, let’s understand this now.

Add Collection

Just drag-drop textboxes, labels, and a button to add the data to the collection as shown below. On Add, button onSelect write below function

Now, when you run and click on Add button. You can see the Record appears in your gallery as shown in below figure.

Remove Collection

Now, In the next step, we will delete the record from the collection.

The syntax of this is very simple

Remove (CollectionName,item)

Now, to achieve this add a delete icon in the gallery as shown in below figure.

On select of delete icon, we can write Remove(StudentCollection, This.Item)

Here This.Item is selected item of the gallery to which we need to delete from the collection.

Now, What if we want to delete the entire collection? then in such case, we have

Clear Collection

The syntax is very simple Clear(CollectionName)

So in our case, we have to write Clear(StudentCollection)

Now, to Edit a particular item in a collection the first this is select the item in the text box which we want to edit and to achieve this we bind the textbox by Gallery’s selected item as shown in below figure.

Once you have done with this then on Update button we can write Patch collection function as shown below

so in this way, we can update the specific item (As shown above we updated only selected item from Gallery).

So, In this session, we understood Collection, add an item in the collection, Remove function to remove a specific item from the collection, Clear Collection to delete entire items from the collection and none other than Patch function to edit the collection.

Congratulations, in the last post you have successfully created your first PowerApp.

In this post, we will try to understand different controls available in PowerApps. Before jumping directly into PowerApps one quick tip wants to share with you that PowerApps is very much inspired by Excel. So, whenever you stuck to any problem which you want to solve than just give a try how you could solve that particular problem in Excel. You will find most of the functions similar to Excel.

Just remember that screen & its controls have global scope in PowerApps.

PowerApps support various controls which we will discuss shortly but before that would like to share that every control has properties and these properties has 2 types Input properties and output properties. We can update the input properties but not output properties.

with this let’s start controls:

You can use control by clicking on control’s icon of Insert menu

Label :- Label is simple a ready only control to show text value. We can change the properties like font, color, position, size etc.. from properties window.

You can write a custom function for any input properties or assign direct value.

TextBox : When we need input from the user then in such cases we can use Textbox control. For example, asking the name of the person.

Just to make you aware Text property is Output property of textbox so you can’t assign value. while Default is in the input property to show any value in the textbox.

Button: Button control is used to perform any action by clicking on it. You can write custom action using the OnSelect trigger.

HtmlText : When we have to deal with Html Data then in such cases we can use HTML textbox.

Pen Input: This is one of the interesting control. When you need pen input from Apps like a signature or something that then you can use this control

Date Picker : When you want date value then in such case we can use Date Picker control. We have provision to change DateTime format & time Zone from Local to UTC.

DropDown:- Whenever we have multiple options from which we need to select the value then we can use DropDown control. DropDown control has Items properties to bind the dropDown options. If a user selected any Dropdown option then we can get by Selected property of dropdown.

Combobox:- Combobox most likely a DropDown and also provide multi selection option.

Rating :- If we want a rating for a specific reason then we can use Rating control.

Timer: By the name, it is clear that it is a timer which starts counting. You can invoke an event on OntimerStart, OnTimerEnd etc..

Toggle: Toggle is just True/False option. So, whenever you want true/false option we can use it.

Radio Button: Radio button is again normal control which you might have used earlier. You have a list of option and you need to select a specific option then we can use a radio button.

Slider: When we required a predefined range and want a user to select from that particular range then slider is one of the option.

Apart from this there some other controls like Form Control , Grid, Attachment etc.. which we will describe soon in our coming post as they need individual attention.

In this last post, we discussed thePowerApps templates. Now, in this post finally, we are going to create our first PowerApp isn’t it exciting?

So, as mentioned earlier login with the authorized credentials and after login you will find following dashboard screen. Here, we need to select a Blank Template as shown below. Here, we have a choice to opt mobile or desktop web. We can choose as per your ease or requirement and then press make this App button.

After clicking the make this app button we get following screen which is basically our playground for App creation or actual editor where we can manage our pages, add new pages, add controls etc..

As this is our first app, we are going to make it very simple and create an addition of 2 numbers screen (Although, it seems simple but bit tricky as well.)

For which we will click 3 label controls ,3 textboxes & 1 button and arrange them properly as shown in below figure. Here we can change the control’s default text. color, etc by property pane.

Once this part is done, in the next step we need to show the sum of First Number, Second number’s value in 3rd text box when user clicks the Sum button.

One more point which we need to take care is format property of the textbox.

Now, to achieve this we are going to write a function on button click as shown in the below snap.

Here, we need to write the code in function’s tab as shown below in screen. if you see here we are using a SUMinbuilt function and using UpdateContext (an internal function) for assigning the addition value of the textboxes to a variable called myAdd.

Now, once we are done with the above function, in the next step we are going to assign the myAdd variable (who holds the addition of text1 & text2) to our result text box. To achieve this select the textbox in which we need to show summation value & click on theProperty window’s function tab.

Here, we have to assign the myAdd variable as a data’s default value (shown in below figure)

Once we done with above steps, next item would be to run this App and do a quick testing. To run this App click on run button (Top right corner of the editor) as shown in below figure.

We will get the below screen to test our sum logic.

That’s great we created and tested our first PowerApps. Now, in next step Save this application. After clicking File menu a new screen (as we are saving this first time) will appear where we need to provide App name , description of app and icon. After providing this details click on the Save menu .

So, congratulations we have created our first simple PowerApps and saved successfully.